‘Acts of Submission’: An open letter to the director of the Office of Government Ethics.; The New York Review, November 22, 2024

Walter M. Shaub Jr. , The New York Review; ‘Acts of Submission’: An open letter to the director of the Office of Government Ethics.

"Dear Hon. David Huitema (David),

Congratulations on being confirmed to serve as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). Thank you for accepting a job you will not enjoy.

It’s been more than a year since President Biden nominated you. The confirmation process took far too long, and it could not have been pleasant. Back in 2023, not long after President Trump’s appointee, Hon. Emory A. Rounds III, finished his term, Senator Mike Lee of Utah declared that the next OGE director should be chosen after the new president’s inauguration (although he had championed Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination shortly before the 2020 election). Since then, he has tried to block you from serving in that role. This September he even claimed in the Senate that “Mr. Huitema left open the possibility of supporting a partisan policy, a partisan approach, from a nonpartisan position.” If the senator had bothered to read the transcript of your confirmation hearing, he would have known you emphatically rejected partisanship. You can expect the Republicans to make increasingly frequent, intense, and unfair attacks on your character.

The straight party-line vote on your confirmation suggests that Senate Republicans will sheepishly fall in line behind a president-elect who wages war on ethics. Your uncontroversial nomination should have been confirmed promptly with a unanimous pro forma vote. As a career government ethics official, you served both Republican and Democratic administrations, assisting their nominees in preparing financial disclosures and ethics agreements, advising appointees on complex issues. No one questioned your commitment, and you gave no one reason to distrust you. That is surely why Biden chose you. I doubt he even knows your political affiliation. I worked with you for years but have no clue as to your political outlook. 

Sadly, however, your fate is likely sealed. President-elect Trump could fire you on or soon after January 20. In Trump’s administration, you will be guilty not for being a party operative, but for not being one. Trump demands fealty."

Walter Shaub Wants You To Fight For An Ethical Democracy; WBUR On Point, February 18, 2020

WBUR, On Point;

Walter Shaub Wants You To Fight For An Ethical Democracy

"For decades, Walter Shaub advised presidential candidates about transparency, ethics and how to avoid conflicts of interest. We talk to Shaub about how he ran the Office of Government Ethics and the future of ethics in government."

Trump stunned ethics experts with his surprising, 'excellent choice' to lead the government office that's been a huge thorn in his side; Business Insider, February 8, 2018

Allan Smith, Business Insider; Trump stunned ethics experts with his surprising, 'excellent choice' to lead the government office that's been a huge thorn in his side

"Ethics experts were over the moon with President Donald Trump's selection to lead the Office of Government Ethics, Emory Rounds.

That includes two high-profile ethicists who have been among the most prominent critics of Trump: Walter Shaub, the former head of OGE who resigned before completing his term, and Richard Painter, top ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush who has repeatedly clashed with the White House."

Trump risks US being seen as 'kleptocracy', says ex-ethics chief Walter Shaub; Guardian, July 31, 2017

David Smith, Guardian; Trump risks US being seen as 'kleptocracy', says ex-ethics chief Walter Shaub

"The former head of the US government ethics watchdog has warned that Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest put the country at risk of being seen as a “kleptocracy”.

Speaking to the Guardian, Walter Shaub, who quit this month as director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), condemned the president for using his hotels and other properties for government business in what is in effect a free advertising campaign.

“His actions create the appearance of profiting from the presidency, and the appearance here is everything because the demand I’m making is so much more than ‘have a clean heart’. It’s ‘Have a clean heart and act appropriately,’” Shaub said.

“The fact that we’re having to ask questions about whether he’s intentionally using the presidency for profit is bad enough because the appearance itself undermines confidence in government.”

He added: “It certainly risks people starting to refer to us as a kleptocracy. That’s a term people throw around fairly freely when they’re talking about Russia, fairly or unfairly, and we run the risk of getting branded the same way. America really should stand for more than that.”"

Former Ethics Director Says Trump Is Causing A 'Crisis;' Calls For Reforms; NPR, July 28, 2017

Mollie Simon, NPR; Former Ethics Director Says Trump Is Causing A 'Crisis;' Calls For Reforms

"Shaub also wants to amend the Ethics in Government Act to prohibit officials from receiving compensation for the use of their names and their family names while in office — a matter particularly relevant to the Trumps, who hold extensive trademarks and make money from placing their name on properties, such as hotels.

Shaub said the changes he proposes transcend partisan politics.

"Both major political parties have always been incredibly supportive of the government ethics program and neither can claim sole credit for having built it," Shaub said.

He has already found support for his efforts from Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina.

If OGE is not strengthened, Shaub said, Americans risk long-standing ethical norms changing, for the worse.

"Norms are the glue that hold society together," he said.""

Trump wants to defang ethics oversight, former ethics chief Walter Shaub says; USA Today, July 25, 2017

Susan Page, USA Today; Trump wants to defang ethics oversight, former ethics chief Walter Shaub says

"[Walter M. Shaub Jr.] told USA TODAY's video newsmaker series that the White House deliberately had leapfrogged over the agency's second-ranking official, chief of staff Shelley Finlayson, in favor of appointing general counsel David Apol as acting director.

"He may fulfill a lifelong ambition of loosening up the ethics program," Shaub said of Apol, saying the two men had disagreed on a series of conflict-of-interest and other questions. He said White House officials had described their relationship with Apol as "cordial."

"You don't want a cordial watchdog," he said. "You want a vigorous watchdog.""

Trump Fills Top Job at Government Ethics Office With a Temporary Appointment; New York Times, July 21, 2017

Eric Lipton, New York Times; 

Trump Fills Top Job at Government Ethics Office With a Temporary Appointment

"President Trump picked a new leader for the Office of Government Ethics on Friday, naming the agency’s general counsel, David J. Apol, as the acting director.

By making the appointment temporary and avoiding Senate confirmation hearings, Mr. Trump is able, at least for now, to avoid an extended public debate before lawmakers about the role of the ethics office during the Trump administration."

Walter Shaub: How to Restore Government Ethics in the Trump Era; New York Times, July 18, 2017

Walter M. Shaub Jr., New York Times; Walter Shaub: How to Restore Government Ethics in the Trump Era

"The Office of Government Ethics needs greater authority to obtain information from the executive branch, including the White House. The White House and agencies lacking inspectors general need investigative oversight, which should be coordinated with O.G.E. The ethics office needs more independence, including authority to communicate directly with Congress on budgetary and legislative matters. Because we can no longer rely on presidents to comply voluntarily with ethical norms, we need new laws to address their conflicts of interest, their receipt of compensation for the use of their names while in office, nepotism and the release of tax forms. Transparency should be increased through laws mandating creation and release of documents related to divestitures, recusals, waivers and training. Disclosure requirements can be refined and the revolving door tightened. These changes would give O.G.E. the tools it needs to address the current challenges and, perhaps more importantly, reinforce for presidents the importance of setting a strong ethical tone from the top."

Outgoing Ethics Chief: U.S. Is ‘Close to a Laughingstock’; New York Times, July 17, 2017

Eric Lipton and Nicholas Fandos, New York Times; Outgoing Ethics Chief: U.S. Is ‘Close to a Laughingstock’

"Walter M. Shaub Jr., who is resigning as the federal government’s top ethics watchdog on Tuesday, said the Trump administration had flouted or directly challenged long-accepted norms in a way that threatened to undermine the United States’ ethical standards, which have been admired around the world.

“It’s hard for the United States to pursue international anticorruption and ethics initiatives when we’re not even keeping our own side of the street clean. It affects our credibility,” Mr. Shaub said in a two-hour interview this past weekend — a weekend Mr. Trump let the world know he was spending at a family-owned golf club that was being paid to host the U.S. Women’s Open tournament. “I think we are pretty close to a laughingstock at this point.”

Mr. Shaub called for nearly a dozen legal changes to strengthen the federal ethics system: changes that, in many cases, he had not considered necessary before Mr. Trump’s election. Every other president since the 1970s, Republican or Democrat, worked closely with the ethics office, he said."

Exiting Ethics Chief Walter Shaub Calls Trump White House 'A Disappointment'; NPR, July 7, 2017

Peter Overby, NPR; Exiting Ethics Chief Walter Shaub Calls Trump White House 'A Disappointment'

"Walter Shaub Jr., outgoing director of the Office of Government Ethics, says there's a new normal for ethics in the Trump administration.

"Even when we're not talking strictly about violations, we're talking about abandoning the norms and ethical traditions of the executive branch that have made our ethics program the gold standard in the world until now," Shaub told All Things Considered host Robert Siegel...

Defenders of federal ethics standards say OGE, and the ethics laws themselves, may be at a turning point.

"Previous administrations have sort of cared a lot about trying to do something about a violation of those conflicts of interest standards, and we have an administration now that honestly doesn't care," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, or POGO."

Surprise Us, Mr. Trump: Name an Ethics Watchdog With Teeth; New York Times, July 7, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; Surprise Us, Mr. Trump: Name an Ethics Watchdog With Teeth

"Walter Shaub Jr. announced his resignation as director of the Office of Government Ethics on Thursday, plunging the federal government’s top ethics watchdog agency into limbo. President Trump now has the chance to appoint an accommodating loyalist who’d give him far less trouble than Mr. Shaub has. Or he could surprise us, and name another independent director committed to the ethical rules of public service. The president’s past behavior doesn’t offer much hope, but it would be in his long-term interest to choose a director with integrity.

The 70-person O.G.E. works with some 4,500 executive branch ethics officials whose goal is preventing conflicts of interest among 2.5 million civilian federal employees. The energy, commitment and character of the person at the top is crucial to the office’s success, not least because it has no real enforcement power. Its influence derives from a mix of financial disclosure rules, public pressure and, ideally, White House support for its mission of ensuring that civil servants act on the behalf of Americans, not themselves."

Walter Shaub’s Brave, Quixotic Ethics Battle with Trump; New Yorker, July 7, 2017

Sheelah Kolhatkar, New Yorker; Walter Shaub’s Brave, Quixotic Ethics Battle with Trump

"After leaving his post at the O.G.E., Shaub will join the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C., as the director of its ethics program. According to Lawrence Noble, the Center’s general counsel, Shaub learned about the job opening only recently. “When the opportunity came for us to hire Walt, we couldn’t pass it up,” Noble said. He added that, to the best of his knowledge, Shaub “was under no outside pressure” to leave the O.G.E. before his term ended, and Shaub told the Washington Post much the same.

In his new role, Shaub will be helping the Center to expand its ethics program, strengthen its watchdog role, and help design potential fortifications to the ethics rules, which have been “stress-tested” under President Trump, as Noble put it. He added that Trump had exposed many weaknesses in ethics laws. With Shaub’s help, his organization will be looking at ways to strengthen and update conflict-of-interest rules for the President specifically, as well as ways to potentially give more power to the O.G.E., which, currently, can only offer advice and suggestions and has no enforcement role."

Government Ethics Chief Resigns, Casting Uncertainty Over Agency; New York Times, July 6, 2017

Nicholas Fandos, New York Times; Government Ethics Chief Resigns, Casting Uncertainty Over Agency

"“I don’t think anyone who comes after Walter is going to challenge the White House publicly the way that I think he did,” said Richard W. Painter, who served as ethics counsel for the George W. Bush White House. “It is a great loss.”

Mr. Painter said the administration would do itself a favor by naming a successor with experience in ethics law and a reputation for independence.

A permanent replacement for Mr. Shaub would require confirmation in the Senate, where Democrats would probably use confirmation hearings to raise grievances about what they see as Mr. Trump’s potential conflicts of interest, and Republicans are unlikely to act as a rubber stamp."

White House Waivers May Have Violated Ethics Rules; New York Times, June 1, 2017

Steve Eder and Eric Lipton, New York Times; White House Waivers May Have Violated Ethics Rules

"The Trump administration may have skirted federal ethics rules by retroactively granting a blanket exemption that allows Stephen K. Bannon, the senior White House strategist, to communicate with editors at Breitbart News, where he was recently an executive.

The exemption, made public late Wednesday along with more than a dozen other ethics waivers issued by the White House, allows all White House aides to communicate with news organizations, even if they involve a “former employer or former client.”"

A Vocal Defender of Ethics Has Fans — and Foes; New York Times, May 30, 2017

Nicholas Fandos, New York Times; A Vocal Defender of Ethics Has Fans — and Foes

"Ethics have been thrust to the forefront in President Trump’s Washington, where the president’s own vast holdings and those of his asset-rich cabinet and advisers from businesses and lobbying firms have raised many accusations of conflicts of interest...

Rick Thomas, a close friend who helped recruit Mr. Shaub to the agency almost two decades ago, said Mr. Shaub had more or less made his peace with his role, even if it means he may be fired before his term’s end. He recalled that when Mr. Shaub was first weighing whether to speak out in opposition to Mr. Trump’s conflict of interest plan, the director turned to a line from Albus Dumbledore, the sagacious wizard who tutors Harry Potter in the ways of the world.

“Something to the effect that, ‘There will be a time when we must choose between what’s easy and what’s right,’” Mr. Thomas recalled Mr. Shaub saying over the phone.

“Believe me,” he said, “there was a lot of angst over that.”"

Chaffetz to get meeting he demanded with ethics official who criticized Trump; Politico, 1/18/17

Darren Samuelsohn, Politico; 

Chaffetz to get meeting he demanded with ethics official who criticized Trump

"“Allowing the public to attend our meeting — or, at the very least, to view it through live broadcast or the attendance of the news media — would ensure transparency and educate the public about how OGE guards the executive branch against conflicts of interest,” he added, though noting he would agree to a private meeting if Chaffetz again refused to speak in front of an audience.

But on Thursday, Chaffetz office said he and Shaub would meet privately on Monday, Jan. 23.

The request for a public meeting is the latest turn in an escalating feud pitting Shaub against Chaffetz and the Trump administration.

It’s also part of a broader struggle over Shaub’s new order of operation under the Office of Government Ethics. The agency has typically operated in relative obscurity under past directors, but, dealing with a president elect who heads a vast business empire, the director has made a controversial break with precedent by adopting an increasingly public profile."

Just when you thought the Trump ethics disaster couldn’t get worse, it did; Washington Post, 1/16/17

Richard Painter and Norman Eisen, Washington Post; Just when you thought the Trump ethics disaster couldn’t get worse, it did

"Richard Painter, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota, was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007 and is vice chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Norman Eisen, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2009 to 2011 and is the chair of CREW...

Priebus also attacked Shaub’s competence, and so his livelihood, questioning “what this person at Government Ethics, what sort of standing he has any more in giving these opinions.” In fact, the director is a dedicated and talented ethicist who has served Democratic and Republican presidents alike with distinction and without controversy for many years. He has already approved 54 percent of the Trump nominees who have submitted their paperwork to OGE, compared with just 29 percent at this point in the Obama transition eight years ago. If the White House chief of staff had made these kinds of threats against the head of OGE when we were serving in the White House, we would have resigned immediately.

We think apologies are due Shaub. In addition, we recommend that Republicans back off of their threats. How about Chaffetz instead publicly affirm the need for the agency and invite Shaub to have a public conversation about that and about Trump’s conflicts with both the majority and minority members of the committee? We are sure that Shaub would accept such an offer and explain to the committee and the public why his concerns about the president-elect’s plan are well founded."

Jason Chaffetz Doesn’t Care About Ethics; Slate, 1/13/17

Dahlia Lithwick, Slate; Jason Chaffetz Doesn’t Care About Ethics

"In a letter to [Jason] Chaffetz, [Elijah] Cummings called for a public hearing with Shaub as the main witness, as opposed to the closed-door meeting Chaffetz is seeking.

But of course, there is no shaming Chaffetz, the guy who announced that he could never again look his daughter in the eye if he endorsed Trump in October, subsequently promised to vote for Trump, and now feels the need to carry Trump’s top secret manila folders around...

Whether it meant attempting to dismantle the congressional watchdog or gunning for the independent ethics chief, it’s now clear that working in a nonpartisan fashion to try to uphold ethical norms is now prohibited in Republican-controlled Washington. You can be sure that so long as it’s ethically bankrupt individuals like Chaffetz in charge of enforcing these norms and laws, then our system will be as rife with corruption as our incoming president wants it to be."

Head of Ethics Office Speaks Out. Some Republicans Ask, Was It Ethical?; New York Times, 1/13/17

Jennifer Steinhauer and Steve Eder, New York Times; Head of Ethics Office Speaks Out. Some Republicans Ask, Was It Ethical?

"Mr. Shaub, a longtime government lawyer who has led the Office of Government Ethics since 2013, has been accused by Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, of playing politics and letting “public relations” seep into the office’s ethical guidance. Mr. Chaffetz requested that Mr. Shaub be interviewed by committee staff members by the end of the month.

“I’m concerned that the person in charge of our office of ethics is not the most ethical person,” Mr. Chaffetz said in an interview on Friday, a day after he sent a stinging letter to Mr. Shaub raising the possibility of a congressional investigation. Mr. Chaffetz noted that Mr. Shaub had made critical public comments, including in a recent speech at a left-leaning think tank, about Mr. Trump’s efforts to separate himself from his business interests."

Trump is headed toward an ethics train wreck; Washington Post, 1/12/17

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; Trump is headed toward an ethics train wreck:

"Ironically, for someone who ran on changing the way Washington does business, Trump has distinguished himself as the sole example of a president unprepared to comply with bipartisan ethical norms and the text of the Constitution. The question for Republicans is now whether they want to collaborate in an egregious violation of the Constitution and in an arrangement that will inevitably call into question virtually every regulatory action, policy decision and personnel pick the administration makes. (Any senator with judicial aspirations should register complaints loudly and clearly; consent to an unconstitutional arrangement should be a disqualifier for any future judicial post.)

Republicans who opposed Trump predicted that he would intellectually, morally and financially corrupt his party and others around him. Nothing we have seen so far indicates that this prediction was off-base. Voters who want a check on an imperial, amoral president will need to elect Democrats to check Trump if Republicans are not up to the job."